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Abstract

Art teachers have, in some manner, always assessed student learning and progress. However, many art teachers do not have the training in assessment to be able to describe and defend their process, nor has there been research to support the effectiveness of how art teachers assess student learning. This study examines the ways six visual art teachers from five districts teaching in traditional public schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels assess visual art. It demonstrates how they are using information gathered from assessments and whether their philosophies of art education influence their actions. Parents and administrators were also interviewed to gather their understanding of visual art assessment. I discuss changes in the way art teachers assess since accountability through Educator Effectiveness (CDE, 2015a) has become a focus of education and what these findings mean to art education in general.

This is a qualitative study in the arts-based method of educational connoisseurship and criticism (Eisner, 1998b, 2002b, 2005). I interviewed and observed the teachers in their classrooms from the introduction to the completion of a work of art with their students. I report findings from each school in descriptive vignettes organized around Eisner's ecology of schooling (Eisner 1998b, 2002a). From these I have identified themes, commonalities, and areas of divergence that present a way for art teachers to describe and justify how, what, and why they assess student learning and provide insight into the world of visual art assessment in the age of educational accountability.